In oilfield operations, it can often be useful to control the passage of fluid between the inside of a wellbore tubular and an annulus between the tubular and the wellbore or casing. During steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) procedures, high-pressure, high-temperature steam can be injected into an upper wellbore to heat the surrounding formation, reducing the viscosity of heavy oil and bitumen in the formation, allowing the oil and bitumen to drain into a lower wellbore for production.
When a SAGD wellbore is prepared, multiple steam release nodes can be positioned along the length of the generally horizontal upper wellbore. In order to maximize the efficiency of the SAGD process, it can be desirable to adjust the amount of steam that is to be released at each node. Current SAGD nodes must be custom made to order after receipt of specifications for the particular SAGD wellbore. Custom made SAGD nodes can take a long time to prepare and ship and have extremely limited potential for re-use. Custom made SAGD nodes cannot be adjusted after manufacture or onsite in the event of changes in the SAGD wellbore specifications requiring more or less steam release from a particular node.